Welcome to the Zwanziger Lab
Greetings! We are diverse materials science lab at Dalhousie University. The lab director, Professor Josef Zwanziger, holds appointments in both the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Sciences, and is currently the Interim Director of that Institute for Research in Materials.Optical Glass and Photoelasticity
Stress on glass, both compressive and tensile, leads to birefringence. Such an effect is shown in the accompanying picture, showing several glass samples undergoing compressive stress and viewed through cross polars. We are working on the problem of designing zero stress optic glasses without the use of lead or other environmentally harmful additives, and have made much progress in this area.
Glass Structure and Crystallization
Another project in glass science involves study of glass structure as it relates to the mechanism of glass devitrification.
Glass Strength
Recently we have become interested in the problem of producing stronger glass. This is an important area because current glass making technology is very energy intensive, and production is expected to rise world-wide due in part to the demands of solar power production. Stronger glass could require that less be melted, resulting in an overall environmental savings. We are studying the structural and atomic bonding problems surrounding glass stiffness and strength, with a variety of microscopic and macroscopic methods.
Computation and Theory
We have a significant effort in computational and theoretical studies of solids. The picture shows the electron density in the Mott-Hubbard insulator LaTiO3, for which we could reproduce the nuclear quadrupole resonance spectra and study the orbital ordering.